Grace to You
by reading
Summary: Dean and Jo have a chat. Strangers and Angels AU.


_Grace to You and Peace_

xxxx

_Post-"Are You There God, It's Me, Dean Winchester"_

_I'm slowly working my way, kind of, back through the season so far. This percolated up – part first viewing, part the latest one. _

_xxxx_

"I'm sorry. He said what?" Jo had been very careful, she'd thought, to put on her best _I am completely rational, and not at all blinded by sheer, unadulterated rage_ voice.

From the beat of silence that followed her question, Jo wasn't sure she'd succeeded.

Dean cleared his throat. "He said that he'd pulled me out, and he could put me back." The tremor she heard in his voice was one she knew only three or four people in the world would recognize. And she realized that it hadn't been anything she'd said that had made him pause. It had been the angel's words. It had been terror.

_Is it possible_, she wondered vaguely, _to murder an angel? To track one down and kill it with your bare hands?_ Mentally, she started thumbing through her Bible and the old systematic theology text she kept on her night stand. _Now what would that be under…_

"But, I don't know." Dean was continuing on, and Jo shook herself free of fantasies about choking the life out of one of the heavenly host. "I… I woke up then and I don't… I don't know if maybe it was a dream?" He said it uncertainly. "It seemed so real, but…"

Jo pulled in a shaky breath, forcing herself to think through a response that might actually be helpful for Dean. "Well." Again, she tried for steady and in control. "As I understand it sometimes angels do speak through dreams or visions," she admitted. "But you've also had an incredibly traumatic last few days, sweetheart. It may very well just be your brain trying to process things." _Please God let it have been a regular dream, a nightmare even, and not an angel—an __angel__—threatening to send someone (DeanDeanDean) back to Hell._

"Do you think?" He asked it so hesitantly, with such a whisper of hope that Jo felt her heart shatter for him. Again. Who knew the pieces could get any smaller after the last four months?

"Honey. I am so far out of my depth here. I might as well be standing on the bottom of the ocean." He laughed a stuttered acknowledgement of what she said. "But, Dean, I… You know that I believe in angels. That I believe they are the powerful warriors of God that this, this Castiel, has portrayed himself as. But, honey, you need to be so, so careful, do you understand me? The Bible warns us about demons who will portray themselves as angels of light to deceive us. And I'm not saying that that's what this Castiel is. What you said about what doesn't affect him, that those demons were afraid, couldn't touch you. Well. That seems telling to me. But. I just…"

"Yeah," Dean agreed with her quietly.

Neither of them said anything, and across the silence Jo longed for him with a physical sort of ache. Longed to have him home. Where she could confirm with her eyes and her arms that he was there and _alive_. Talking to him on the phone was fine and infinitely better than the alternative. But to have him _home_. To have _both_ of them home….

Because when they'd lost Dean, they'd lost Sam as well. He'd cut the Sweeds off as completely as he had Bobby. She still remembered when she'd gotten the first "The number you have dialed is no longer in service" message. Thinking she'd dialed it wrong, then remembering it was programmed into her phone. Trying it again, in case she'd hit the wrong key and Samantha Box's number was the one that would no longer work. Tried it on Luke's phone and Jake's. And finally one last time on her own phone, staring into middle distance with a sinking sensation, icy and painful, dread worming its way through her body as the message replayed in her ear. _Oh, baby._

A call to Bobby had not eased her fear. In fact, it had just added to it, because Bobby had been lost in his own way. Slurring slightly even with it being early afternoon, without contact from Sam for weeks. She'd been dumbfounded by what she'd heard in the man's voice. Frightened for him. She'd offered Bobby a room with them, if he wanted it, but he'd turned her down.

"Just in case," he'd mumbled, careful, trying (and failing) to enunciate clearly in the way of someone who was drunk and trying to hide it. "In case one of them… In case Sam…" He'd trailed to a stop. Wandering.

"OK, Bobby," she'd whispered, trying to hide her own tears. "Of course." She'd hesitated before she'd said it, but said it anyway. "You always have a place here, if you want it. Or need it. For anything."

They'd ended the call at that. And Jo had spent the next 45 minutes sobbing in the shower.

Jo still hadn't talked to Sam. Not really. Not beyond pleasantries and a formal, strangely detached-sounding apology for not having called. It worried her.

"Do you think…?" Dean's quiet question brought her back to the present with a start. "Why d'you think… God would," he cleared his throat, "want to save me?"

She answered without really thinking, worn out and confused. "I don't know, honey," she said tiredly. "Why would God want to save any of us?" She rubbed a hand over her face. "We're all a bunch of selfish, rebellious, prideful human beings who think we know better than the God of the universe." She rolled her head around on her neck, wincing at the sound of a pop as she did so.

It took Jo a second to recognize the almost dumbfounded silence on the other end of the phone. _Oh. Whoops. Helpful. I'm trying to be helpful _

"But God _does_ save us," she went on hurriedly. "Honey, even though I don't understand any of this, I believe that God has His reasons for saving you. Because He's _good_. And _He_. _Loves. You_. I believe _that_ is true whether Castiel is an angel of the Lord or another demon from the pit of hell. God loves you. And _nothing_ happens in this world that God doesn't allow. Nothing."

More silence. But maybe not as shocked. Maybe.

"Honestly, though, sweetheart? Other than that I got nothin'. I don't know why God chose you for this task. Why does He choose any of us?" she asked, in an unthinking counter-point to her earlier question. "I don't know. But He does. And I think all we can do is be willing to be used as He sees fit."

There was no response.

"Not the answer you were looking for?" she asked.

"No," he answered truthfully. "I don't know," he amended.

"Dean, honey, God…"

"Works in mysterious ways?" Dean spoke over what she was going to say, bitterness sharp in his voice.

She winced. "Yeah, I guess," she said. "Though I've always kind of hated that expression." And it hadn't been what she was going to say. "But it's true that God's ways are not our ways. Which I guess may not be much more comfort to you. Though it is to me for some reason."

Dean didn't say anything, and Jo let it drop.

"How's Sam doing?" she asked

"OK. I guess."

Jo raised an eyebrow. "What does he think about all this?"

Dean huffed out a laugh that sounded a little bitter as well. "He's all excited that angels are real."

Jo couldn't help the smile or her own answering laugh. "It is pretty cool," she allowed.

There was another speaking pause in the conversation.

"If you believe it," Dean said darkly.

Jo was quiet for a second. "Yeah," she breathed. She had to allow that, too.

Dean sighed. "I'll let you go."

She didn't want to let _him_ go, but she knew she had to. "OK, honey. Be safe, alright? Keep me posted?"

"Yeah," he said.

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

She heard the catch in his voice, but there was no hesitation. There never was anymore.

"Pass it along to Sam for me?"

Now there was a pause. And an overly-dramatic sigh. "Fine."

She laughed. "Thank you."

They hung up, and Jo continued to sit in the kitchen trying to wrap her head around what Dean had told her. Vaguely she wished Luke and the boys would get home, rushing into the room and distracting her from the unsettled thoughts her conversation with Dean had stirred up. _66 Seals and the Apocalypse and an angel of the Lord… _

Absently, she unearthed her Bible from one of the stacks of books and papers on the table, flipping through it to the end.

"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John… Grace to you and peace…"

xxxx

_TBC? Maybe? _

_Author's note: I really don't know if I'll continue with this or not. And if I do continue, I'm not sure what direction it might take. It may be kind of like __Hollow__ was – vignettes with the Sweeds over the course of the season. It might go even more AU than it already is with the Sweeds involved. Or it may end right here. I'll be honest and say that I'm a little afraid that a series of conversations between Dean/Sam and the Sweeds will end up being a bunch of chapters with Jo shrieking things like, "What do you mean an __angel__ chose to __fall__ and become a human being because there's no __choice__ or forgiveness or love in heaven with __God__? What?! WHAAAAAAT?!?!?!" until her head explodes. (Luke, of course, wouldn't shriek. But his head might also explode.) No one wants to read that. And I certainly don't want to write it. So. If I can figure out a way to avoid having this simply be a way for me to vent some of my frustrations through the poor Sweeds, there will be more. If not… The End. :)_

xxxx


End file.
